Pacific Northwest Research Station

Research on restoring critical habitat for listed Pacific salmon

A suite of research projects is using $2,240,000 of economic recovery funds to create high-tech and field jobs that support the work of leading fisheries and watershed scientists and natural resource professionals from the Forest Service and their partners (the University of Washington, Oregon State University, other research institutions, and the USDI Bureau of Land Management). Most of these projects will continue through 2012 or 2013.

Economically, culturally, and ecologically, salmon are critical to Pacific Northwest States, where people are acutely concerned for the future of these highly visible species. Several populations of Pacific salmon and trout are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Researchers at the PNW Research Station have studied these species’ habitat for four decades and are using the economic recovery funds to help land managers, public utility districts, and others at federal, state, and county levels make decisions on restoring native salmon and trout habitat and providing clean water in ways that anticipate the effects of wildfire and climate change. These research projects will bring together interrelated factors that have been identified as strongly affecting the habitat for threatened fish species.

Workers hired with economic recovery funds are assisting with the study of landscape-scale factors relating to salmonid habitat; helping investigate the effectiveness of alternative forest management practices, including stream restoration, on fish habitat; analyzing long-term trends in water quality data from Forest Service experimental forests to evaluate effects of fire, forest harvest, and a changing climate on stream chemistry; and helping to assess the potential effects of climate change on fish habitat and populations in the Northwest. Click on any of the “Related Links” to see more complete descriptions of individual subprojects.

The results of this effort will be reported in peer-reviewed journals and used in decision-support models by land and fisheries managers and policymakers. The information yielded by this project opens the door to future jobs related to fish habitat and riparian restoration, forest and fisheries management, forest fuel reduction, and recreation in affected counties.